Surgery

For those of you who don’t know, Jacob had mouth surgery on the 27th of December. (I promise not to give any gross details for the people with weak stomachs like myself!) Back in October we were at a routine orthodontist appointment and I was informed the lower gums in front of his two middle teeth were receding. The orthodontist referred us to a periodontist. I’d never heard of a periodontist so I could only imagine what was in store for us. We visited with the first periodontist a week after his otho appointment. I found out Jacob was going to need a skin graft done to fix the problem with his lower gums. If we did not have this done his two bottom teeth would fall out. Not what you want to hear for your 10 year old child. So long story short I requested another referral to a different periodontist as I wasn’t impressed with the first one we visited. Thankfully I did because the second periodontist we visited was great. They gave us a lot of information but not too much to scare Jacob, unlike the first guy. I walked out of the office knowing it would be ok. So we scheduled the appointment for Monday, December 27th.

For weeks before the big day, Jacob would often mention he didn’t want to have surgery. I could tell he was terrified like any kid would be. When the day came I picked him up and took him out to lunch seeing as the next 6 weeks he’d be eating soft food only. When we got to the appointment he looked like he was going to cry. Eventually he did. The wonderful team at Great Plains Periodontics helped me calm him down and told him it was going to be ok and the worst part would be getting the shot of novocaine. I waited patiently out in the waiting room worried about how he was doing. Thankfully the procedure only lasted about 40-45 mins. They told me he did great. I wasn’t surprised; this was Jacob they were dealing with! I was brought back to the room and given instructions on how to take care of the area for the next 2 weeks. They asked if I wanted to see the graft. Knowing this was the only time he could pull his lip down for the next 2-4 weeks I gladly said yes. Wrong answer………within 2 – 3 mins I was feeling light headed and not so good. I should have known better! We left the appointment with our care instructions and were on our own.

So far everything has gone great with the recovery. Jacob had his 2 week check-up on the 10th of January and they removed the stitches. The healing isn’t as far as they’d like it to be but hopefully by his next appointment it will be further along. I can gladly say I’m glad the procedure is done. I’m just hoping we don’t have to do part of it over.